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Eustace Carlton
In Biggles on the Home Front, Eustace Carlton was the name or assumed name of a master criminal who organised burglaries and then "fenced" the proceeds. Otherwise known as "The Count", Carlton was, according to Gaskin, one of the "slickest jewel theives of all time" and was known and wanted by the police over half of Europe as well as in the United States. Of unknown nationality, Carlton moved comfortably across the countries of Europe and spoke many laguages. At some point in his career, however, a detonator went off in his hands as he prepared to blow a safe and this restricted his activities to some extent. For a long time, Scotland Yard believed that Carlton was dead--he had been pursued by French police and tried to get over the mountains into Italy. Two guides who had gone with him later came back to tell the authorities that he had died of a heart attack, which was plausible because he was known to have a weak heart. However, when Bertie was sent to mount surveillance over the Gortons, a house in Hertfordshire, he ran into an elderly bearded man whom Gaskin was able to identify as Carlton. As Biggles correctly surmised, Carlton, being unable to commit robberies himself because of his mutilated right hand, had gone into organising crimes for others instead. He rented a large house in the Hertfordshire countryside which he used as a base for oerations. There he maintained an aircraft and engaged a pilot and maintenance staff. He would then engage known criminals to commit burglaries and use an aircraft to fence the proceeds abroad. This plan worked extremely well. It seemed that Carlton was willing and able to pay good prices as a fence and was able to draw a number of known criminals into his network, setting off a spate of high-profile jewel robberies of varying modus operandi which at first had Scotland Yard baffled. Biggles met Carlton when he and Ginger were taken forcibly to the Gortons after their cover had been blown. Carlton accused them of being police spies and threatened to have then locked in the house and burnt to death--he was planning to torch the Gortons and flee overseas because he knew that the police already knew too much. Fortunately for Biggles and Ginger, Gaskin and his men raided the place just in time. At the time of the police showdown, Carlton was making ready to depart in his Auster piloted by Verney Laxter. However Laxter, spotting the police closing in, decided to abandon his employer and tried to take off without his passenger. Carlton ran after the aircraft but had a real heart attack and stumbled and died. Bertie, the first among the Air Police crew to meet Carlton, he observed tat he was a man about sixty years of age, pale, thin-faced, bald in front and with a short, well-trimmed greying beard. He spoke with a cultured voice but with a slight accent, suggesting that he was a foreigner long resident in England. His distinguishing feature was a mutilated right hand with the little finger missing--the result of an accident while handling explosives. Category:People Category:Biggles characters Category:Air Police era characters